Elden Ring: Taking On Godrick The Grafted

Limgrave gives players the chance to experience a wide range of bosses and smaller dungeons, but Stormveil Castle towers above all and has two main bosses. You may have already seen Margit The Fell Omen punishing players during the closed-network test. During my hands-on time with the game, I had the chance to face off with Godrick the Grafted himself, the current lord of Stormveil, and a serious challenge, especially for an “early game” boss. Granted, you don’t have to fight Godrick at all to get to other adjacent zones to continue exploring and powering up, so my path to the many-appendaged tyrant was brisk. I didn’t really do a whole lot of leveling up or gear optimization because the clock was ticking during my 10-hour play session, and I wanted to see and do as much as possible. It’s safe to say I was fairly underleveled compared to when From Software expects players to take on Godrick, but it’s important to reiterate that because of the open-world structure of the game, everyone’s experience is likely to be quite different. If you do wander into Godrick early on, perhaps it’s best to take a detour and check out the surrounding biomes before attempting to take him on.

Anyway, the first thing that struck me about this fight was the sheer breadth and depth of Godrick’s moveset. It’s something more akin to say, Orphan of Kos in Bloodborne, where even after plunging back into battle many times, I was still seeing new animations and abilities. Now, Godrick is definitely not as tough as Bloodborne’s pinnacle monstrosity, but he’s also fairly early in the game, and his large array of skills will likely keep players on their toes for a multitude of attempts. Now, he still has some core telegraphed abilities to look for and exploit, and like many other From Software bosses, these abilities can change or be altered as he enters “phase two,” which occurs at around 50% health or so. Preview footage has shown that Godrick can graft a dragon’s head onto one of his numerous arms, unlocking new and dangerous skills.

So, here’s a question that’s been on everyone’s mind – do the spirit summons trivialize or minimize the impact of big battles like Godrick? My experience with him indicates that it does not. Granted, I had not yet found the ability to upgrade my spirit companions, which I assume is tied to a character named Roderika. So, mine were “tier 1 spirits”, but Godrick was able to completely obliterate most spirits I experimented with in one or two attacks. Early on, I attempted to use a spirit jellyfish summon that would splash poison on Godrick from afar, dividing his attention between us and making sure that I “pulled aggro” from him before he’d kill my little buddy. The poison ticking was not effective once Godrick decided to kill the critter. My spirit wolves and townsfolk were beyond useless, as Godrick’s repertoire has multiple and frequent area-of-effect attacks, making these packs of companions useless. The Skeletal Militiamen were the most helpful of my magic spirits. However, it was a speedbump that Godrick still found useful. They are valuable. Their value? 

That said, the spirits overall did almost nothing to dull Godrick’s edge. A vast array of extremely fast melee attacks, point-blank-cascading area-of-effect attacks, and fire attacks with the dragon head make Godrick a real issue. My best luck in phase 2 was trying to track Godrick using a type of flamethrower attack that he uses, which is aimed at the ground with his head and moves slowly forward. It’s a fantastic opportunity to hit him with some firepower, but be aware that some of his flames can come back at you from behind and could strike you if you are too close.

When defeated, Godrick drops a “Remembrance of Godrick,” which I could use to gain many runes. This can be transformed into serious armor, weapons, spells, and more, much like a Boss or Lord soul from other From games. I also obtained one of the key Great Runes that I assume are tied to progressing to the game’s final canonical area or boss, similar to how the Lords of Cinder are structured in Dark Souls 3. Godrick took me quite a few attempts, and if he’s the “first” boss of the demigods to take on, that leads me to believe that others in the hierarchy are going to be quite challenging indeed.